Chapter 2: Global Engagement and Culture
2.3 Understanding Intercultural Communication
Understanding Intercultural Communication
If you decide to take a class on intercultural communication you will learn a great deal about the similarities and differences across cultural groups. Since this chapter is meant to give you an overview or taste of this exciting field of study we will discuss important cultural dimension concepts for understanding communication practices among cultures.
Collectivist versus Individualistic
In addition to the four speaking styles that characterize cultures so do value systems. Of particular importance to intercultural communication is whether the culture has a collectivist or individualistic orientation. When a person or culture has a collective orientation they place the needs and interests of the group above individual desires or motivations. In contrast, the self or one’s own personal goals motivate those cultures with individualistic orientation. Thus, each person is viewed as responsible for their own success or failure in life. From years of research, Geert Hofstede organized 52 countries in terms of their orientation to individualism. What does it say about your country? Compare it to a country you want to travel to.
When looking at Hofstede’s research and that of others on individualism and collectivism, it is important to remember that no culture is purely one or the other. Think of these qualities as points along a continuum rather than fixed positions. Individuals and co-cultures may exhibit differences in individualism/collectivism from the dominant culture and certain contexts may highlight one or the other. Changing is difficult. In some of your classes, for example, does the Professor require a group project as part of the final grade? How do students respond to such an assignment? In our experience, we find that some students enjoy and benefit from the collective and collaborative process and seem to learn better in such an environment. These students have more of a collective orientation. Other students, usually the majority, are resistant to such assignments citing reasons such as “it’s difficult to coordinate schedules with four other people” or “I don’t want my grade resting on someone else’s performance.” These statements reflect an individual orientation.
High Context versus Low Context
Think about someone you are very close to—a best friend, romantic partner, or sibling. Have there been times when you began a sentence and the other person knew exactly what you were going to say before you said it? For example, in a situation between two sisters, one sister might exclaim, “Get off!” (which is short for “get off my wavelength”). This phenomenon of being on someone’s wavelength is similar to what Hall (1976) describes as high context. In high-context communication, the meaning is in the people, or more specifically, the relationship between the people as opposed to just the words. Low-context communication occurs when we have to rely on the translation of the words to decipher a person’s meaning. The American legal system, for example, relies on low-context communication.
While some cultures are low or high context, in general terms, there can also be individual or contextual differences within cultures. In the example above between the two sisters, they are using high-context communication; however, America is considered a low-context culture. Countries such as Germany and Sweden are also low context while Japan and China are high-context cultures.
Power Distance
Feminity versus Masculinity
Uncertainty Avoidance
Long-term Orientation versus Short-term Orientation
Indulgence versus Restraint
In 2010 a sixth dimension was added to the model, Indulgence versus Restraint. This was based on Bulgarian sociologist Minkov’s label and also drew on the extensive World Values Survey. Indulgence societies tend to allow relatively free gratification of natural human desires related to enjoying life and having fun whereas Restraint societies are more likely to believe that such gratification needs to be curbed and regulated by strict norms. Indulgent cultures will tend to focus more on individual happiness and well being, leisure time is more important and there are greater freedom and personal control. This is in contrast with restrained cultures where positive emotions are less freely expressed and happiness, freedom, and leisure are not given the same importance. The map below broadly reflects where indulgence and restraint tend to prevail.
For a more detailed information, review the Dimension Maps of the World. These six world maps demonstrate the cultural dimensions distributed by country observing the culture of each.